Back to Attila

[Joseph Salmons]

The Ostrogoths had even more intense contact with the Huns than the
Visigoths, and I don't recall offhand whether this name is connected
particularly to Ostrogothic sources. But atta was a common word for
'father' in Gothic, see atta unsar 'our father' in the Bible
translations done by Ulfila/Wulfila, a Visigoth, who authored almost
all the actual Gothic material we have. (The form fadar is famously
attested once there as well.)

The word is found across Germanic and people have often suggested
that it started as child language. Cognates show up as the usual word
for 'father' today in some North Frisian dialects, for example.
Sources like Lehmann's Gothic Etymological Dictionary give a set of
Indo-European cognates.

And -ila is a common diminutive/hypocoristic suffix with names
(including the just-mentioned bishop/translator, connected to 'wolf')
and beyond (like barnilo, 'little kid').


Joe
who's somewhat surprised that discussion has turned to an area he
knows a little about



On Jun 20, 2007, at 8:55 AM, Laurence Urdang wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Back to Attila
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>
> I might have been the culprit who wrote that Attila meant 'little
> father,' without identifying the language.  (I didn't say,
> "German," in any event.)  As I recall, it is East Gothic.
>   L. Urdang
>   Old Lyme
>
> Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jim Parish
> Subject: Re: Back to Attila
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> Your Name wrote:
>> At one point in this thread, someone said:
>>
>>
>> <<"Attila", I am told, is German for "little father" and may be a
>> title
>> rather than his name.
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I asked a native German speaker. His reply:
>> << nope, i've never heard that word.. >>
>
> My understanding is that it's Gothic, not German:
> "atta" ("father"), plus a
> diminutive.
>
> Jim Parish
>
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